Could your students do a better job than George Osborne?

George Osborne has competition: students take part in a classroom debate. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

The people who will be paying for the decisions made by today's policy makers for most of their lives are not yet old enough to vote. This is why it is so important that young people are being given the opportunity to have their say right now. But how? As you read this (and until 15 February), thousands of young people are being given their Chance to be Chancellor.

Participants (using a very easy-to-use digital tool) make choices similar to those faced by the chancellor and his team at the Treasury to determine how public money should be raised and spent – bearing in mind the vast consequences that these decisions will have.

Students are faced with the questions such as:

• What difference would it make to increase or reduce corporation tax? • Would an 'unhealthy food tax' save the NHS money on treating obesity-related illnesses?• Should household benefits be capped or is that unfair to those that need the support? • Is the Pupil Premium a good idea? • How much can we really invest in environmental programmes when we have such a large deficit to manage?

After taking part in the campaign, Penny Brooks of Royal Grammar School Guildford got in touch to say how her students benefited: "In class today I asked the pupils each to write three things about Chance to be Chancellor and an initial look through their comments shows it gave a greater insight into how the government operates and how the chancellor decides what to spend, a better understanding of current economic issues and it is a good idea."

The results are collated and published as the Youth Budget, which will be presented in the House of Commons ahead of Budget 2013 to MPs and Treasury representatives to ensure that this vital tranche of the public is being listened to.

For those who wish to make their case heard even more strongly, participants are invited to write their own policies, and to create a 90 second video to be in to win great prizes, including an iPad.

It is quite remarkable how passionate young people become about tax and public spending, and the importance of having their say on these issues, once they understand how relevant it all is to their lives and the impact these decisions have on everyday society.

Last year's winner Isaac Warburton, from Ken Stimpson CommunitySchool in Peterborough, summed up the purpose of the Youth Budget saying: "By speaking together through the Youth Budget, we have been given a voice, a voice that needs to be heard. I want the Youth Budget to give young people a presence in the discussions on the economic choices facing the country."

This will be the third Youth Budget published by the Citizenship Foundation, as part of Paying for It which is run in partnership with Aviva, to provide a unique learning opportunity that brings real-time real-world economic challenges into the classroom.

Last year's Youth Budget demonstrated how young people would balance social and economic trade-offs to tackle the country's economic challenges. The majority voted to raise the level of income earned before paying tax, reform welfare entitlement, invest more in further education and environment and make efficiency savings across the police and defence forces. After a year of real-life cuts and further economic challenges, what will this year's results bring?

All this is free and easy to use, so make sure your students get the chance to have their say – their Chance to be Chancellor.

• Order free badges and postcards to get students behind the campaign and have their say • Run a single Chance to be Chancellor lesson• Book in a Citizenship Foundation workshop to launch this in a school assembly • Use Paying for It's high quality lesson plans to prepare and introduce your students to the big policy areas

Robert Geddis is project manager, economics, at the Citizenship Foundation. With a background in politics and economics, he has built up the Paying for It programme from its inception to bring the economy to life for young people.

About this article

Could your students do a better job than George Osborne?

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 02.00 EST on Sunday 27 January 2013.
It was last modified at 10.20 EDT on Wednesday 21 May 2014.
It was first published at 02.02 EST on Sunday 27 January 2013.

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